Completely unencumbered . . . Will thought of poor Aunt Mary sinking deeper and deeper with every step into the quicksands. Deeper and deeper until, struggling and protesting to the last, she had gone down, completely and forever, into the Essential Horror. He looked again at the fleshless face on the pillow and saw that it was smiling.
"The Light," came the hoarse whisper, "the Clear Light. It's here-along with the pain, in spite of the pain."
"And where are youV Susila asked.
"Over there, in the corner." Lakshmi tried to point, but the raised hand faltered and fell back, inert, on the coverlet. "I can see myself there. And she can see my body on the bed."
"Can she see the Light?"
"No. The Light's here, where my body is."
The door of the sickroom was quietly opened. Will turned his head and was in time to see Dr. Robert's small spare figure emerging from behind the screen into the rosy twilight.
Susila rose and motioned him to her place beside the bed. Dr. Robert sat down and, leaning forward, took his wife's hand in one of his and laid the other on her forehead.
"It's me," he whispered.
"At last. . ."
A tree, he explained, had fallen across the telephone line. No communication with the High Altitude Station except by road. They had sent a messenger in a car, and the car had broken down. More than two hours had been lost. "But thank goodness," Dr. Robert concluded, "here I finally am."
The dying woman sighed profoundly, opened her eyes for a moment and looked up at him with a smile, then closed them again. "I knew you'd come."
"Lakshmi," he said very softly. "Lakshmi." He drew the tips of his fingers across the wrinkled forehead, again and again. "My little love." There were tears on his cheeks; but his voice was firm and he spoke with the tenderness not of weakness, but of power.
"I'm not over there any more," Lakshmi whispered.
"She was over there in the corner," Susila explained to her father-in-law. "Looking at her body here on the bed."
"But now I've come back. Me and the pain, me and the Light, me and you-all together."
The peacock screamed again and, through the insect noises that in this tropical night were the equivalent of silence, far off but clear came the sound of gay music, flutes and plucked strings and the steady throbbing of drums.
"Listen," said Dr. Robert. "Can you hear it? They're dancing."
"Dancing," Lakshmi repeated. "Dancing."
"Dancing so lightly," Susila whispered. "As though they had wings."
The music swelled up again into audibility.
"It's the Courting Dance," Susila went on.
"The Courting Dance. Robert, do you remember?"
"Could I ever forget?"
Yes, Will said to himself, could one ever forget? Could one ever forget that other distant music and, nearby, unnaturally quick and shallow, the sound of dying breath in a boy's ears? In the house across the street somebody was practicing one of those Brahms Waltzes that Aunt Mary had loved to play. One-two and three and One-two and three and O-o-o-ne two three, One- and One and Two-Three and One and . . . The odious stranger who had once been Aunt Mary stirred out of her artificial stupor and opened her eyes. An expression of the most intense malignity had appeared on the yellow, wasted face. "Go and tell them to stop," the harsh, unrecognizable voice had almost screamed. And then the lines of malignity had changed into the lines of despair, and the stranger, the pitiable odious stranger started to sob uncontrollably. Those Brahms Waltzes-they were the pieces, out of all her repertory, that Frank had loved best.
Another gust of cool air brought with it a louder strain of the
gay, bright music.
"All those young people dancing together," said Dr. Robert. "All that laughter and desire, all that uncomplicated happiness! It's all here, like an atmosphere, like a field of force. Their joy and our love-Susila's love, my love-all working together, all reinforcing one another. Love and joy enveloping you, my darling; love and joy carrying you up into the peace of the Clear Light. Listen to the music. Can you still hear it, Lakshmi?"
"She's drifted away again," said Susila. "Try to bring her
back."
Dr. Robert slipped an arm under the emaciated body and lifted it into a sitting posture. The head drooped sideways onto
his shoulder.
"My little love," he kept whispering. "My little love . . ."
Her eyelids fluttered open for a moment. "Brighter," came the barely audible whisper, "brighter." And a smile of happiness intense almost to the point of elation transfigured her face.
Through his tears Dr. Robert smiled back at her. "So now you can let go, my darling." He stroked her gray hair. "Now you can let go. Let go," he insisted. "Let go of this poor old body. You don't need it any more. Let it fall away from you. Leave it lying here like a pile of worn-out clothes."
In the fleshless face the mouth had fallen carvernously open, and suddenly the breathing became stertorous.
"My love, my little love . . ." Dr. Robert held her more closely. "Let go now, let go. Leave it here, your old worn-out body, and go on. Go on, my darling, go on into the Light, into the peace, into the living peace of the Clear Light ..."
Susila picked up one of the limp hands and kissed it, then turned to little Radha.
"Time to go," she whispered, touching the girl's shoulder.
Interrupted in her meditation, Radha opened her eyes, not) ded and, scrambling to her feet, tiptoed silently towards the door. Susila beckoned to Will and, together, they followed her. In silence the three of them walked along the corridor. At the swing door Radha took her leave.
"Thank you for letting me be with you," she whispered.
Susila kissed her. "Thank you for helping to make it easier for Lakshmi."
Will followed Susila across the lobby and out into the warm odorous darkness. In silence they started to walk downhill towards the marketplace.
"And now," he said at last, speaking under a strange compul sion to deny his emotion in a display of the cheapest kind of cynicism, "I suppose she's trotting off to do a little maithunn with her boy friend."
"As a matter of fact," said Susila calmly, "she's on night duty. But if she weren't, what would be the objection to her going on from the yoga of death to the yoga of love?"
Will did not answer immediately. He was thinking of what had happened between himself and Babs on the evening of Molly's funeral. The yoga of antilove, the yoga of resented addiction, of lust and the self-loathing that reinforces the self and makes it yet more loathsome.
"I'm sorry I tried to be unpleasant," he said at last.
"It's your father's ghost. We'll have to see if we can exorcise it."
They had crossed the marketplace and now, at the end of the short street that led out of the village, they had come to the open space where the jeep was parked. As Susila turned the car onto the highway, the beam of their headlamps swept across a small green car that was turning downhill into the bypass.
"Don't I recognize the royal Baby Austin?"
"You do," said Susila, and wondered where the Rani and Murugan could be going at this time of night.
"They're up to no good," Will guessed. And on a sudden impulse he told Susila of his roving commission from Joe Aldehyde, his dealings with the Queen Mother and Mr. Bahu.